West Chester Branch

The West Chester Branch was a local passenger and freight railroad line owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and later Penn Central. The line connected with the Philadelphia-Washington Main Line (Northeast Corridor) at Arsenal Junction near the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia-Chicago Main Line near Frazer, Pennsylvania. A portion of this line is now called the Media/Elwyn Line and is owned by SEPTA.

The branch was composed of rail lines built by two companies in the 19th century.

One portion, a 9-mile (14 km) line from West Chester to Malvern, was built after 1831 by the West Chester Railroad. The PRR leased the line in 1859, and moved the Malvern end to a junction at Frazer in 1880. The PRR acquired the West Chester Railroad in 1903.

The other portion, a 26-mile (42 km) line from Philadelphia to West Chester, was built by the West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad (WC&P) between 1852 and 1858. In 1880, the WC&P was purchased by the PRR-controlled Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PWB), which merged it the following year into the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad.

As the PRR's West Chester Branch, the line offered commuter rail service between Philadelphia, Media, and West Chester, the county seat of Chester County. In the 1920s, the PRR electrified the Paoli and Chestnut Hill lines, then its Philadelphia-Washington Main Line to Wilmington and the West Chester Branch out to West Chester.

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